Receiver and Separates

Other than sheer volume and power, are there any benefits of separates over a single receiver? In other words, is a receiver w/ 110wpc going to sound the same as a pre/pro with a power amp running at 110wpc? (Assuming the receiver and separtes are both of high quality, and the receiver actually does push 110wpc x 6 rather than a poor quality receiver (sony) that claims 100w x 6 but in reality runs at about 50wpc.)

If you were to perhaps compare a HK AVR-7200 which will deliver around 100W-130W per channel (Harman underrates there amps so the amount of power is going to be somewhere between there) and to compare seperates that are of high quality then the seperates might sound a little better, they may not. In terms of power, they would probably both put out about the same, and the difference probably wouldn't be noticeable.

The other thing is that a reciever with an amp built in is usually going to be a bit cheaper than seperates. Seperates will usually cost around $2k, while a reciever will run about $1k for a model like the AVR-7200 and such.

Ok, so if I'm about to begin building an HT from scratch, probably the best thing to do would be to buy a receiver w/ a built in amp that also has pre-outs for an addition power amp upgrade. That way I can initially use the built in amp, but then later upgrade to an external power amp, and then finally get a stand alone pre/pro. (Basically this is the best if I am wanting to build the system in increments, that way I won't have to buy a pre-pro and an amp at the same time, I can just upgrade one component at a time). Also, I have another question about that. If I have an amp that runs at 120w x 6, but will run at 240w x 2 in stereo mode, could I get a 240w x 4 external amp and then also use the built in amp to power the remaining two channels to ultimately get a 240w x 6 setup surround sound setup? Are there some receivers that would allow such a thing?